Why People Hate Living in Vancouver (and want to move away) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzyITR89-3s
Vancouver, Burnaby and NW is the city, although they are 3 separate municipalities.
Burnaby, BC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqB1UXuXclc&t=265s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puM93PmmWbI
People are leaving Toronto and Vancouver in record numbers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0Jh0EymI_A
Moving From Canada to the U.S. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJAA1D_7lCs
https://www.mainroads.wa.gov.au/travel-information/driving-in-wa/driving-in-perth
https://www.mainroads.wa.gov.au/technical-commercial/smartfreeways While WA take a spart aproach, backwards BC still takes a dumb approach to things.
https://www.mainroads.wa.gov.au/projects-initiatives/all-projects/metropolitan/smartfreeways/ 4 lanes each way with 2 track in the middle. You won't find that in Vancouver or anywhere in backwards BC.
https://www.mainroads.wa.gov.au/projects-initiatives/all-projects/metropolitan In contrast, the Metro Vancouver Region is a joke!
"Perth is Australia’s fourth biggest city, with a population of 2.3 million. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhS-fiJ14GU Perhaps surprisingly, Perth has an expansive suburban railway network. 8 lines, 85 stations and 270 km of track – it’s a large system for a relatively small city."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D2CXdZ_4Ro
Unfortunatly, the first 2 Skytrain lines were designed to only have 80m stations and trains. The 3rd line to YVR and Richmond was only designed to have 50m stations. In contrast, the Montreal Metro has stations long enough to accomodate 152.4m long trains. Thus, the greatest mistake was to not enable the Skytrain to eventually become a very high capacity train system. Combine that with mostly narrow bridges and roads in Greater Vancouver and you have the epitome of congestive urban planning.
At least by late 2025 some of the new 5 car trains were out, along with some of the old 6 car little box trains on the 1st line. The 2nd and 3rd lines are still running 2 car joke trains, but that symbolically fits right in with the, KEEP BC SMALL AND BACKWARDS mentality.
A proper big city long-term plan would have been to allow for 10 car trains, with at least 5-6 car trains at the start when each line opened.
Victoria has been a provincial backwater for most of its history. Despite being in a mild winter setting, it's so small when compared to Edmonton, Winnipeg, Quebec City and Halifax.
https://www.onevictoriaplace.ca
https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?cityID=37&status=15
While Edmonton was eventually allowed to have a tall building, even by Toronto, Calgary and Montreal standards, Victoria was always supposed to have shorter buildings than Winnipeg, Quebec City and Halifax. That's part of the KEEP THINGS SMALL mentality on V. Island.
Victoria should have had its first LRT line by now, but that might improve urban mobility. Eventually, Victoria and Nanaimo will merge into one linear urban area. Eventually, the Comox_Valley_Regional_District will have over 100,000 people, the Regional_District_of_Nanaimo will have over 200,000 people, the Cowichan_Valley_Regional_District will exceed 100,000 people and the Capital_Regional_District will have over 450,000 people.
Of course there doesn't seem to be any big regional scale planning from Sooke to Courtenay. Perhaps the island's urban planners will wait until there is 800,000 and over a million residents on the island.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver_Island#Demographics
So, as more people discover that Victoria and Vancouver are the mildest winter cities in Canada, more people just might want to move there. Especially, when Canadian Snowbirds don't feel as comfortable with Florida, Texas & California.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-ING5Pfrdk
The old bridge has 4 narrow lanes and no traffic divider. However, the new bridge won't have any bus or HOV lanes and no emergency lanes.
Chokepoint-bottleneck planning remains firmly entrenched in backwards BC.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwwOqxqzNrQ
It's great symbolism with opening the bridge with just 1 lane. In 1800s backwater BC, it was amazing just to have a wagon road anywhere. Well the new bridge, when it's fully open,will have 2 wagon roads each way, just like the old bridge. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0EeyJmmpuM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDFkc9Oa-j0
Unfortunatly, the old bridge is such bad shape that it can't be refurbished. Otherwise, each bridge could have provided 3 or 4 lanes each way. People will be in for a shock once the old bridge is dismantled. Then the new bridge will become just another classic 4 lane BC bottleneck-chokepoint.
No bus lanes or HOV lanes and especially no wide emergency lanes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw934knFUgc Such a very narrow 4 lane bridge that just wasn't properly designed for future capacity.
The new (4 lane) cable-stayed bridge to replace the old 1937 Pattullo Bridge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHzr0ZSIcfo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4aYxObfjJ8
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Mann_Bridge#Original_bridge The original PMB had only 2 lanes each way with no emergency lanes or wide shoulders. It was designed to be a classic BC bottleneck-chokepoint right from the start. Eventually, a 5th lane was squeezed in.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Mann_Bridge#Opposition_to_twinning_plan While bridge duplication isn't that big of a problem in Australia or the US, it is in the BC part of Canada. Australia is allowed to have 3 proper big cities on the Pacific. Thus, the urban scale of infrastructure in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane are much larger than what's allowed in the Greater Vancouver Region.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Mann_Bridge#New_bridge Given that this is supposed to be part of the main East-West highway in Canada, a significantly wider bridge was eventually approved. While it was designed with a provision for a potential future rail line, there should have also been a provision for a lower deck.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwsOVZ-j7hg
Oakridge_Park is on a much smaller scale than Metrotown, Brentwood and Lougheed. It will especially be on a much smaller scale than Parramatta in NSW.
Unfortunatly, the Oakridge-41st_Avenue_station was only designed to have 50m platforms, when it should have been at least 100m. Thus, the utter foolishness has meant that instead of allowing for a future level station clearance to accomodate 5 car trains, the Canada (embassament) Line was only designed to just have 2.5 car trains. While its extremely short stations might have been disguised as a cost saving measurer, there didn't seem to be any key people onboard to make sure that it could eventually become a proper big city train line. Its sad that a line which opened in 2009 is still only running 2 car trains. While the 2.5 car configuration is still a joke of a train, at least half of an extra coach-length is better than nothing. Plus, there should have been extra cars ordered by now so at least during the very busy times the trains could be operating at 1 minute headways. Unfortunatly, this goes against the Vancouver & BC congestion planning mentality.
Despite being built several years after the Sydney_Harbour_Bridge, the joke that is the Pattullo_Bridge was designed to only have 4 narrow lanes & only 1 sidewalk. Of course the replacement_bridge will only open with 2 lanes each way. It was as if someone really wanted to make sure that there won't be 2 bus lanes and no HOV lanes when the bridge opens. While the new bridge is designed to be expanded from a 4 lane joke to eventually having 6 lanes, it still won't be wide enough to accomodate 2 HOV lanes as well as 2 bus lanes. Of course the new bridge won't have any emergency lanes, just like the old bridge. However, it will have 2 bike lanes and 2 sidewalks. https://www.globalhighways.com/news/pattullo-bridge-completion-end-year Its only fitting that in backwards BC this new bridge wouldn't be designed to eventually have a lower deck to accomodate 2 bus lanes and 2 LRT tracks.
If the planners were afraid to symbolically have a wide bridge between NW and Surrey, the old Pattullo_Bridge should have been designed to eventually have a lower deck for trams, trucks and busses. Even when the SkyBridge between NW and Surrey opened in 1990, it wasn't designed to have any bus lanes or emergency vehicle lanes and especially, no bike and footpaths.
Is Vancouver the best city in North America? (2019) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8dmVUrNt38
One of the biggest mistakes in Vancouver & SW BC is to have short trains combined with mostly narrow bridges. Thus, the region doesn't get to have long, high capacity trains and there isn't a proper regional network of bus-bridges. The refusal to twin most of the bridges means that it's almost impossible to have a proper and efficient regional network of rapid-bus and HOV lanes.
While Montreal built the REM to augment their long-train Metro system, Vancouver should have allowed for enough clearance to eventually have 500 foot long trains. 80m-50m Skytrain stations are going to become inadequate, when there should have been a 152.4m provision so that the trains could eventually become as long as the ones on the Montreal Metro.
Is Regional Rail in the Future of British Columbia? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PeIOVy6fFc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09pmnf8npA8
There was a time when no structure in BC was allowed to be as tall as Blackpool Tower. Then there was a time when no building in Vancouver was allowed to be as tall as the Seattle Space needle or the Calgary Tower. Even in late 2025, only one Vancouver building has been allowed to be taller than the Calgary Tower.
Burnaby, Coquitlam and especially Surrey, don't have such imposed height restrictions as stumpy Vancouver. Thus, Burnaby, Coquitlam and Surrey will all be having taller buildings than Vancouver.
If Montreal can ever have its equivalent of La_Defense or Canary_Wharf, then it might be able to have some tall buildings that would be impressive by Melbourne and Toronto standards. Perhaps even Chicago or NYC standards.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uot7oIA9-ZE The station platforms will be 80m, which can only accomodate a 5 car train.
Unfortunatly, even if this segment had 500' or 152.4m long stations like the Montreal Metro, the rest of the first 2 lines only have 80m stations. Thus, 80m is only about 52% of the length of a Montreal Metro station, which can accomodate 9 car trains. It's taken until 2025 for the SkyTrain to gradually start running 5 car trains. In theory, if two Vancouver 80m trains run at twice the frequency as one 152m Montreal Metro train, a similar capacity could be attained.
However, in the long run, it would have been much more cost effective to have the first 2 SkyTrain lines stations already roughed out to 152m, or a least have enough level clearance to eventually become twice the length. But that's what a proper big city would do, something that Vancouver is against.
Even as an initial cost saving measure, the YVR-Canada Line should have opened with 100m stations, instead of the inadequate 50m joke. Then it could immediately accomodate 5 car trains. The station platforms should have had enough level clearance to eventually accommodate a 160m long train consisting of 8 cars reaching both ferry terminals. Of course there seems to be no plan to connect YVR to both ferry terminals.
Its very difficult for BC cities to allow proper big city size infrastructure, because that would symbolize a pro growth initiative. Since the world is mostly composed of non-white people, a slow growth agenda became a clever way to symbolically demonstrate a refusal to build big. BC is multicultural, but Canada has less than 1% of the worlds population. Even in the 2020s, BC still retains some of its colonial outpost mentality. Just keep things small and backwards and try to remain a backwater for as long as possible.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0eokh7IQq8
Life of the Homelessness in Vancouver Canada https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwRLD49gJhI
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multnomah_County,_Oregon While Portland is so tiny when compared to NYC, it still has the potential to become a big city like Seattle, someday.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clark_County,_Washington Vancouver, WA is basically a suburb of Portland. However, V-WA could eventually become like a smaller version of Jersey_City,_New_Jersey.
Its a case of a smaller river city next to a larger river city, that is part of a metropolitan area.
The New_York_metropolitan_area is the most densely populated and the biggest in the US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_metropolitan_area#Geography
The Portland_metropolitan_area could potentially become as big as the Seattle_metropolitan_area, some day. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland_metropolitan_area#Metropolitan_statistical_area
Seattle is already a larger city than Boston. However, the Seattle_metropolitan_area still isn't quite as big as the Greater_Boston Area.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_metropolitan_area#Geography
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Boston#Metropolitan_Area
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_England Boston
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Northwest Seattle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Northwest#Population
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_City-Windsor_Corridor Montreal and Toronto
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calgary-Edmonton_Corridor No hindrence from backwards BC.
Then there is backwards Vancouver and the Lower_Mainland part of BC. Short trains and mostly narrow bridges are hindering the region, by design. The regional passenger rail and the freight rail lines all need to be properly upgraded.
Don't forget the provincial backwater that is Victoria,_British_Columbia. At least Greater_Victoria has the potential to become a major island metropolitan area, someday. There should be a 4 track passenger and freight line between Victoria and Nanaimo and even up to Comox.
Unfortunatly, they keep looking at the wrong location for a highway crossing.
https://www.capitaldaily.ca/news/bridge-fixed-link-vancouver-island-salish-sea
A further north option would make it a lot easier and cheaper to construct an 8 lane bridge and a 4 track train route.
There should have been plans by now to have a highway and train bridge providing a fast and efficient link between Powell+River and Campbell+River.
A possible route could go between Bliss+Landing, Cortes+Bay, Whaletown, Read+Island, Bold+Point, Heriot+Bay and North+Campbell+River.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver_Island_fixed_link , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sVUCNzodXU
https://www.change.org/p/ask-the-bc-government-to-study-a-fixed-link-to-vancouver-island
https://bcbusiness.ca/industries/general/fixed-link-idea-gets-a-brief-new-lifeagain/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6I3sbe2QRUM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Houston_Ship_Channel_Bridge Its as if somehow a backwater BC bridge got built in Texas. While a bridge with only 2 lanes each way & no emergency lanes seems to fit with the small-scale Vancouver mentality, such a narrow bridge in Houston was almost inadequate right from the start.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Houston_Ship_Channel_Bridge#Future While it doesn't seem to have a provision for rail, it's still on a grand scale like the Samuel-De_Champlain_Bridge in Montreal. Especially like the new Tappan_Zee_Bridge near NYC.
Several cities around the world are able to build nice wide bridges, because they aren't hindered by anything like the Vancouver Mind Virus (VMV), or the Backwards BC Mentality (BBCM).
https://www.traveltexas.com/articles/post/everything-is-bigger-in-texas Being from the BC part of Canada, its difficult to grasp that BIG Texas has more people than Australia, yet still has mostly wide open spaces. The THINK BIG mentality in Texas is the total opposite to the BBCM.
https://www.nypl.org/blog/2015/03/11/nyc-big-apple When you live in Vancouver for several decades, its amazing to see what several other cities can do, simply because they aren't hindered by the VMV.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvkifuIjq9I The BSB was a 6 lane crossing that even had a provision for a lower deck intended for streetcars. Eventually, 2 lanes were removed & the lower deck was never completed. However, Vancouver was unable to prevent Seattle & Portland from reviving some of their streetcar routes.
The problem isn't bike lanes, it's the lack of interest to build a proper regional network of bus & bike bridges. Thus, if a proper bike bridge was built next to the Burrard+Street+Bridge, then 2 of its 6 lanes could have been for buses or at least HOV lanes. The lower deck could have still been for streetcars or tram-trains going between Vancouver & Richmond. The irony of backwards Vancouver is that it was one of the first cities to get rid of its streetcars & will likely be one of the last to bring them back.
The Fraser River Tunnel Project https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWhHJWKa6CQ Unfortunatly, this will still be a chokepoint or congested crossing.
Of course the new Richmond-Delta+Tunnel wasn't designed to be part of a rail link between the airport and the ferry terminal. There should have been 2 HOV lanes, as well as 2 bus lanes, but that would be a big-city 10 lane crossing. Instead, just an 8 lane tunnel with no train component. Eventually, a train and HOV bridge or tunnel will have to be built next to it.
At least the first SkyTrain line can now have 5 car trains. However, the 2 car joke of a train still exists between Vancouver & Coquitlam, as well as between Vancouver & Richmond. The Montreal Metro can have 9 car trains and BART in SF can have 10 car trains. Such things are possible because they don't have a congestive BC panning mentality.
With such a high capital construction cost, its foolish and very short sighted that Vancouver & BC never allowed for enough clearance to eventually have 10 car trains.
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/mark-v-skytrain-train-enter-service-design-translink
At least the first 2 SkyTrain lines have stations that can accomodate a 5 car train. Unfortunatly, the joke that is the Canada embassament Line never allowed enough level clearance for 5 car trains, only a 2.5 car train. Combine short trains with mostly narrow bridges and no interest to build a series of bus-bridges and you have a fine example of congestive planning. Of course no one seems to know where the funds that should have gone towards big city infrastructure went.
